Here is a follow-up to my earlier post on this topic. The LDS Newsroom put up a second post regarding financial disclosures in connection with in-kind contributions to the Yes on 8 campaign by the LDS Church (as opposed to voluntary contributions by individual Mormons): “Media Reports on Proposition 8 Filing Uninformed.” The post includes a table that lays out all reports by date and amount reported. Seems pretty straightforward. Hard to figure out what all the squawking is about.

As long as I’m on the topic, go read Get Religion’s “Are you now or have you ever been a Prop 8 supporter?” Reading the post (by a journalist, not a Mormon) helps correct the shameless misuse of terminology by post-election commenters. It notes that “opponents of the measure were quite angry” … not those who supported Prop 8. It reviews “targeted harassment” of some Prop 8 supporters who were publicly identified. It expresses surprise that the media isn’t more interested in “blacklisting of Mormon, Evangelical, Catholic and other supporters of Prop. 8.” It states that “some Prop. 8 donors have received death threats and envelopes containing white powder, and their businesses have been boycotted.” It quotes the New York Times commentary that the use of disclosure laws to post identity information of contributors to Yes on 8 “may be undermining the same democratic values that the regulations were to promote.” You can venture your own opinion to what adjective best describes the anti-democratic values displayed by those (anonymously) posting the information, but isn’t it fair to say we prefer democratic values?

While the story raises ethical questions about that particular use of publicly disclosed contribution data, the real focus of the post is why the media hasn’t shown more interest in the story. And for those who read the comments at the GR post, the “Dave” who was very active in the comments was not me.

About Mormon Inquiry

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David Banack is an attorney living in Jackson Hole. He joined the LDS Church at age 15 and later served a two-year LDS mission to France and Switzerland. He has lived up and down the West Coast, as well as in Fiji, Samoa, Sweden, Utah, and now Wyoming. Dave has been running the Mormon Inquiry site discussing LDS and Christian issues since 2003. He is a website editor for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought and also participates at the LDS weblog Times and Seasons. The views expressed on this blog are his own.